Students: Tarred with the Same Brush.

I recently read an article on here about how Oldfield Park is changing for the worse, and one woman's negative experiences with the students that live on her road. She says they are up at all hours and when someone asked them to turn down their music they were abusive and rude... Now clearly this is unacceptable, however I have news for the people of Bath: that group of people didn't behave like that because they're students, they did so because they're inconsiderate, obnoxious, unpleasant human beings. And what's more, those two are NOT the same thing...I am sick of being scowled at, looked down upon and accused purely because I'm 21 and study in the local area. The vast majority of students, myself and my friends included, are not the gross stereotype that the local residents would like us to be; I enjoy going out possibly more than anyone I've met, but I'm never loud on the way back, I don't start fights, or vandalise anything, or hurl abuse at my neighbours.... And I don't drink. I know, hard to comprehend, a student that doesn't drink AND still enjoys going out, but it's true. In this respect, fair enough, I'll accept that I'm an anomaly, but even all my friends who do drink are still respectful and sensible (or at least with someone who's sensible at all times!). We do not wilfully cause trouble or create difficulty, we do not derive pleasure from making residents' lives a misery, we simply study locally and enjoy going out. The thing that residents do not seem to realise is that WE ARE THE MAJORITY.

I respect that it must be tiresome to have that disruptive minority so close to home, but my issue comes from the lack of differentiation; rather than introduce themselves and accept that maybe this group of students could be something other than the monstrosities previously encountered, residents simply write everyone off as STUDENTS and therefore CRETINS. I have never felt so judged as I do living in Oldfield Park, and it's not fair that the actions of a few are being made to impact the many who simply wish to get a degree and have fun whilst doing it.

To put it in some context, my housemates and I (there are four of us, three boys and a girl) were walking back from dinner in town at about 9pm a few weeks ago. As we came up our road, a gentleman (I use the term ironically) came rushing out of his house and shouted at us 'Were you the ones making all the noise the other night?!' We were taken aback, not least of all because no, we were not the ones making all the noise the other night, but also because we were in the middle of a pleasant evening and were not expecting to have to suddenly defend ourselves to a man we had never met. So we said 'No, sorry, it wasn't us' and went to continue walking, at which point the gentleman came right up close to us, and proceeded to look us up and down very slowly and very suspiciously, pausing to examine each of our faces in turn. Eventually, he said 'Oh no, I don't think it was you' at which point I, slightly miffed at being cross-examined for no reason, said 'No, it wasn't, as we said. Have a nice evening.' and the four of us walked away before he could respond. It was an extremely unpleasant way to be spoken to and treated... Had the gentleman come up to us, introduced himself and said something like 'Do you know anything about the noise the other night?' it would've instantly made for a healthier exchange.

This is my point: we are not bad people and we are tired of being accused for the actions of a few. If a mother bumped into you with her child's buggy without apologising, you wouldn't immediately despise everyone with children. If a waiter is rude to you, you don't take it upon yourself to hate everyone in the service industry. If you got a papercut you would be unlikely to never read a book again... I'm being facetious but the fact remains; why then, when a handful of students cause a problem and display antisocial tendencies, is it acceptable to judge, openly hate and look down upon every single student? All it does is create an unnecessary tension.

It doesn't make us overly willing to be considerate members of the community if all our efforts amount to us being considered troublemakers anyway... However, we'll continue to be, because we're decent, mature, respectful young adults, who in my experience are often far more pleasant to deal with than the very people doing all the finger-pointing. I've not once been yelled at, or had a rude note left on my car, or been glared at on my way out of the house by a fellow student; no, all of those are examples of residents' behaviour towards me, purely because I am a student. It is possible that the residents need to reconsider their stance and certainly their actions, as the supposedly atrocious behaviour the evil students apparently display towards them, making their lives a misery, is not in fact a million miles aways from the way they treat us. Maybe Oldfield Park's troubles aren't our fault after all...

Comments

Right, I've had a glass or two of wine so now I'm speaking up.
Landlords should be fined if the students in their houses don't toe the line and keep their area tidy.
I am a landlord, not to students tho, but I make sure my tenants don't upset the neighbours.
Landlords are to blame . . .

Could i add to PhilRodgers post that the residents have had to watch an almost doubling of student numbers since the Millenium and during that time Bath University has made proportionally scant provision for accommodation and Bath Spa University has only recently constructed a few hundred places on its campus. Even the College is attracting foreign students in need of accommodation but has made no provision. Previous responses to requests to build more halls of residence on campus have provoked student outrage at being treated like cattle.
The consequence of this surge in student numbers is that the price of purchasing homes is now beyond the reach of those on average incomes; rental costs are too high for those with families requiring more than a room plus shared facilities; and there are now 12,400 on the homeless register within B&NES.
If Robert you search on the Chronicle website for student accommodation you will observe hundreds of posts over many years listing problems faced by residents, and despite publicity drives to minimise inconvenience, the noise, parking and refusal to follow the rubbish and recycling guidelines have become progressively worse with the increased number of students. To such an extent that there are a number of families previously living in Oldfield Park who have relocated. This is one of the reasons why the council is attempting to restrict new homes with multiple occupation.
Even the introduction of bendy buses for the benefit of students which are a cause of central congestion, the surfeit of trendy bars and clubs driving out shops for ordinary people in the centre, and the minimal involvement in assisting local voluntary organisations add to the historical poor image.
Of course the majority of students are courteous but the minority is increasing with the student numbers. Also obviously they can live where they wish, but please understand Robert that although you may not be the cause of adverse attitudes, the hostility you sense will not dissipate with eloquent pleas.
Instead of looking for tolerence from the residents it would be preferable if you tackled the root cause which is the refusal of the universities/college to take responsibility for the accommodation of the students, even if this is on land outside Bath. Resolving the homeless problem within Bath is for me far more important.

I doff my cap to you Phil, that is a brilliantly written response. I can only add that as a resident of a residential cul-de-sac in Oldfield Park where only around 5% of the houses remain as private, non-student houses, that it is students and only students who wake our ten month old baby and my wife and I on a regular basis. This is usually at approximately 11pm as everyone pours out of their houseshares full to the gills with cheap supermarket booze (the smashed bottles of which then litter the street for weeks afterwards following half-hearted attempts to put them out for recycling) to get taxis into town. This is usually followed by a number of more sporadic repeats performances anywhere between 2 and 4am.
We are getting to the stage where we have little option but to sell up and move (even though we cannot really afford to) because neither of us are able to catch up with any of the sleep our student neighbours deprive us of (not an option with a baby!) and our careers are beginning to suffer as a result. You will forgive me therefore, Robert, for having little sympathy for you, and indeed for taking exception to being lectured by a temporary resident with a remarkable sense of entitlement for someone who has never paid a penny of council tax towards the local services they enjoy. You may not have intended to portray this sense of entitlement Robert, and apologies if I wrong you, but I'm afraid that's how it reads to me.
I don't have an underlying problem with students Robert. I think they are an essential addition to our city and I'm sure there are lots like you who are responsible while making the most of their time in our generally fantastic city. Furthermore, I am a graduate myself (although was lucky enough to go to a Uni where I could live on campus for the duration) so it would be hypocritical of me to denounce all students. However, I do have a problem with my quality of life, for which I work hard and have a third of my earnings taken away in tax, being adversely affected to such an extent. I'm sorry if I come across as insufferably grumpy, but I am dog tired from sleep deprivation, raising a baby and having to work hard. I am also somewhat dispirited at the prospect of having to leave a house I love so that I can get a decent quality of life and raise my daughter in a community where she isn't woken by late night parties, shouting and swearing in the streets and has to negotiate torn bins bags and smashed bottles in her pushchair.

Robert, while it is clearly not ALL students who make trouble for their neighbours in OP, when there are issues in our street, such as:
- back garden BBQs that drag on until til 4am, even midweek, complete with silly shrieking every 20 seconds
- massive house meet-ups where 40 people gather in one house to drink themselves silly til 11pm, then spill into the street for a mass 'shoutathon' to decide who gets into which taxi for that all-important 5-min journey into town
- people returning from town at around 2-3am and singing/shouting
- rubbish and recycling outside despite it being 3 days since (or until) collection day
... I can say hand on heart that it is ALWAYS the students who are causing the problem.
So, yes, there are houses of students who never cause any trouble and I know of a few who have been very kind and respectful to long-term residents. Listening to someone practise a musical instrument isn't always pleasurable, but one house of music students in our street who had only ever practised during the day once paid for tickets and taxis both ways for an elderly neighbour to attend their end-of-year concert at the Tippett centre. That is a perfect example of being considerate and neighbourly. Popping a note through a door to say "We are having a noisy party tonight" is neither; it is a sham which I am sorry to see included in the 'official' SU advice to students.
I fully subscribe to the idea that anyone has the right to live anywhere, but no-one should have the right to disrupt neighbours' leisure time and sleep. I wouldn't have the nerve to put a note through a neighbour's door saying "I am going to be drilling in the party wall until 2am tonight", nor would it cross my mind to even do so.
I really would urge you, rather than criticising residents (you do seem, by the way, to be tarring us all with the same brush!) to for their reaction to the problem, to try to work on the cause of the problem, as you clearly see it as being a root cause for injustice in the way you are treated. With your eloquence, communication skills and your own understanding of student life, maybe you could run an awareness campaign that makes it clear to the antisocial elements among the students what is & isn't acceptable behaviour in an area where neighbours are trying to raise children who need their sleep, or where elderly people wish to live in peace & quiet. I would wish you well in doing so.

RococoMole:
So apparently you're not keen on my article? That in itself is both respectable and understandable, however I'm not sure it warrants a vicious and scathing personal attack. You know nothing of me or my situation, there will be no moving back to Mum & Dad for me after I graduate, I do not have a sense of entitlement, I am not accusing all residents of being unpleasant, I am not complaining about being looked at funny.... Oh, and my name is Robert, per my username and as has been mentioned several times in the comments (I'm not too sure where you got 'James' from.)
Where all other commenters seem to have taken the article the way it was intended and entered into a healthy and useful debate about the problem, you seem to be going out of your way to be incredibly unpleasant purely because you do not agree with the content of the article. You accuse me of attaching my argument to something not water tight and then proceed to make assumptions about me and my familial situation... a tad hypocritical perhaps?
My article was not intended to be an incendiary attack, I was simply presenting another side of the debate, and even commenters who do not agree with me have found merit in what I've said and understood where I am coming from. You however have taken all context away from the matter and made it an incredibly nasty exchange. I see no need for this behaviour.
Although maybe I should thank you as you are inadvertently strengthening my original point....

WillSandry,
I have to disagree , this is a poorly written article based on a shoddy premise of equivalency. James equates somebody asking him a question and some other people merely looking at him with years of noise harassment. Asking a question is not in itself an offensive act, shrieking as if you are on fire while you are merely drunk in a residential area at 4am is an offensive act. Doing it repeatedly is why some people have a problem with students, having to endure it year in year out is what drove the author of the original article.
James' second accusation is the more ridiculous of the two: People look at him funnily and James imagines the reasons why they are looking at him funnily. He attaches these entirely made up motives and then attempts to use them as a cogent argument.
To recap on Jimmy's case: STUDENTS AREN'T "GROSS" BECAUSE A MAN ASKED A QUESTION AND ANOTHER TIME I IMAGINED A RESIDENT WAS THINKING NASTY THOUGHTS ABOUT ME.
Hardly a water tight is it?
The whole piece is in itself a perfect gem of irony. James attempts to distance himself from the nasty noisy "anti-social" students and at the same time accuses all residents of being unpleasant. Let's go through this again…James goes to where somebody lives, describes them as unpleasant and unfriendly, complains that he hasn't been accepted by a community on a public forum, and then has the temerity to deny that he is the anti-social one? This is pure unadulterated anti-social behaviour in action – a shining example.
I don't believe James is offending on purpose, but he is demonstrating the ignorant and entitled attitude that causes friction between residents and students. He certainly didn't write this to reach out to the residents, he's not trying to address the issues, he is trying to absolve himself of responsibility and blame anyone but himself and the students he approves of. I see nothing positive here, I see nothing constructive, no conciliation, just a shrill squeal of "it's not my fault".
Well James don't worry, soon your nightmare will be over. You will graduate from university and move back home to Mum and Dad where you will stay for the next 25 years until you can afford to move out.

Char, I'm sorry it is not acceptable to simply blame the council for the rubbish problem. It is NOT a council problem (and do be careful when passing the blame on to the council, as you and the thousands of other students in Oldfield Park don't pay a penny towards the council services that you use, nor indeed do your landlords as far as I'm aware). Bin bags work fine, if you put them in a bin (approximately £10 from Homebase for a sturdy plastic number complete with lid). Also, they are rather less tempting to the seagulls if there is no food waste in them and this is instead placed in the very sturdy food recycling boxes with locking lids that the council provide. It also helps if rubbish is put out as close as possible to collection time (which is surprisingly regular) and certainly not a few minutes after collection time as one set of my neighbours keep doing. By following the above simple steps, our rubbish consistently ends up where it is supposed to - in the collection lorries. Sadly, the same cannot be said for a good 75% of the student houses in our street. It really is so disheartening when students (and indeed some permanent residents - but primarily the former) don't bother to make proper use of the generally excellent refuse services that we pay for on your behalf and when taken to task about it, simply blame the council.

This is a very well written article and I completely understand where Robert1810 is coming from. I do need to throw the title straight back at him and other students in our community though...
Please do not tar all longer term residents with the same brush! The vast, vast majority of longer term Oldfield residents are not anti-student. They do however have very understandable concerns about the rapid change of tenure which mcupis and DaveBathwick have captured in their posts. I agree with mcupis's assessment and I elaborate on the causes and effects of this rapid change of tenure on my website for those interested: http://tinyurl.com/bugp3go
It's unfortunate that as a society we tend to remember the worst of people, and the worst of things. Think about staff at residential care homes, and you'll probably think of the horrors exposed by BBC Panorama at Winterbourne View in Bristol. For every Winterbourne View there are 10's or 100's of care homes with fantastic, caring staff. Mud sticks no matter how unfairly.
I am Chair of the Student Community Partnership (SCP) which is a Partnership between the Council, both Universities and their student unions. I would summarise its purpose as: "To promote the positive benefits students bring to our community, and to manage any negative effects".
To concentrate on the negative for a moment - some commentators to this article seem unclear about the correct procedure if a neighbour dispute arises. The first thing to do is to speak with your neighbour! Then if that doesn't work and there is an on-going issue, the procedure is the same for all residents of B&NES - and that's to phone Council Connect on 394041. In the event that the issue is student related (i.e. you are a student or your neighbour is a student) the call will be passed to the SCP the help resolve the issue in the first instance.
I will close with the same message as I gave at the start of this academic year: "No matter who you are, where you live, or how you live, it's good to get to know your neighbours. Please go and say hello.

Also a student living in Oldfield park with 4 others we had other residents from the street coming round our house about the rubbish out on the pavement, which has blown down from bins at the top of our road due to the wind and rain and not thrown on the floor deliberately by us.
This is a council problem, that using bin bags for rubbish and not proper bins and open boxes of rubbish attracts foxes,ripping them open overnight isn't our fault. I feel if non-student residents want to gain a healthly relationship with students, they can't assume were bad people and were to blame and just use polite manners then can work together. It just annoys me when people are rude about it and don't know the real story to begin with and judge us before they get to know us.